Bittersweet
by phlox
Summary: Draco was rather pleased with his record of not-promise-making; he'd never led anyone on, and he'd always been up front about what people should expect from him. Until then, he'd been perfectly satisfied that what people expected from him was very little.


**Beta Readers:** Again, the ever-enthusiastic and endlessly encouraging Unseen Librarian, who (yet again) stepped in at the last minute with love and laughter. Thank you, Ook!

Written for DHr Advent 2014. Prompt: Wreath.

* * *

Draco shouldn't even be here.

It wasn't his sort of event. It was in fact the kind of event he used the considerable imaginative powers of his three assistants to get him _out_ of regularly. And, if he did find himself having to represent Malfoy Industries at something like the Ministry of Magic International Interdepartmental Intercorporational Annual Brunch, he never, ever arrived without someone on his arm.

Because a woman on his arm meant he didn't have to talk to anyone he didn't want to talk to. A woman on his arm could be used as an excuse to leave if necessary. And a woman on his arm meant that anything written about him and his appearance at said event would likely be about the _appearance_ of the woman on his arm and very little else. (Hey, he didn't make the rules for how the media treated witches; he just benefitted from them.)

And, of course, it was always nice to find that woman wrapped around him the next morning.

But he'd lost an argument with Blaise, who handled the more business-y, public-relations-y, and, well... _work_ -y things for the company. In short, the sorts of things that happen in daylight hours. Draco was more of a nighttime wheeler-dealer, his particular gifts in schmoozing, procuring attractive dates, and sleeping in.

He was marvelous at it. Blaise was brilliant at the rest, but he'd had to go out of town to attend his mother's fifth (or seventh... Draco was pretty sure it was an odd number) wedding. And it had been impressed upon Draco before his CEO left that a great number of Ministry contacts and contracts required at least showing up to this ridiculous event.

So here he was, dateless, before noon, surrounded by far-too-serious people who wanted to talk legitimate _daytime_ business. Draco hastily secured himself a drink and staked out a place in a corner of the banquet hall. He was enough out of the way to be safe from most of the conversation but visible enough that he was fulfilling his purpose in being there.

Hermione wasn't one for these events either, or so he gathered from the aforementioned media (and their tendency to rate both her lack of appearances as well as her _appearance_ in similarly scathing fashion), but then, her profile in the twenty-plus years since the war had been obscure. Obscurity was by design in the high-powered, backroom boiler of International Relations. She was the witch behind the wizard, behind the wizard, _behind_ the wizard. He'd had plenty of dealings with her over the years, but she wasn't one for the social scene he frequented.

This made her attendance here at this insipid brunch even more incomprehensible than his own. Didn't she have an entire staff of minions who could do this sort of thing for her? But there she was, drink in hand, power suit tailored to her curves, and artfully applied smile on her face.

And here he was, and it was all uncomfortable enough that seeing her had the effect of spotting an old friend. A life preserver tossed before an engulfing wave of boredom, his mind welcomed the sight of her with an 'Oh, _there she is_ ' as though he'd been searching for days. He'd already started toward her before he remembered their history, their place, and propriety in general.

Hermione was nodding vaguely toward the Minister of Somethingorother who was blathering on at her for what must have felt like ages. Draco could tell about these things; the bloke had that sort of face. The kind of face that screams 'I can speak knowledgeably and at length about potted plants.' Draco had been skillfully avoiding those faces for the better part of two decades.

Draco had no qualms about interrupting, and Hermione welcomed his intrusion immediately.

"Malfoy!" she said, turning to him as he approached. "I need to speak with you about your Swiss merger–" She reached for Draco's hand and took it firmly. "Please excuse me, Minister Pottedplants."

Draco didn't actually catch the name, so pleased was he at her warm greeting and the opportunity of playing the savior, rescuing her from the clutches of tedium. He actually had to stifle a chuckle as the Minister left them.

"This is excruciating," he said once they were alone.

"Which part – the company, the food, or the morning sun?" she said breezily, her smile covering any sign that she agreed with his assessment of the room.

Just mentioning it made Draco squint his eyes a little and clutch his Bloody Mary more tightly to his chest. "Would you judge me if I said all three?" he asked.

"I would certainly believe you if you did," Hermione said, with a tone that implied she wouldn't be inclined to believe him otherwise.

That rankled Draco, as did the fact that she'd apparently read his press. Granted, it was mostly true, aside from the ever-growing list of fiancées on whom they breathlessly reported whenever he went anywhere in public. (He was more than happy to have them continue speculating; it kept any one of the dozens of witches he dated from getting ideas that he was in it for the long haul.)

It was probably Hermione's skepticism that drew him in; Draco had a need to win people (read: women) over with his charm, and the degree of difficulty increased that need exponentially. How dare she discount his sincerity based on his public and private record of the last twenty years? That seemed unfair.

"Now that I've saved you from what was surely a mind-numbing conversation, I need your help in return."

"Oh?" Hermione said, surprised. " _Do_ you actually want to talk about that merger?"

"Merciful Merlin, no," Draco said, scandalized that she would think he'd be so vulgar as to talk business. "No, I think we should partner up for the purposes of surviving this farce. You know, work in tandem. Encircle the enemy, provide each other supporting fire."

"Or, we could actually do what we came here for," she replied sternly.

"And what did you come here for, Granger? I'm betting it's because of some freak accident of scheduling that's going to mean the loss of at least one person's job."

She sighed, and Draco knew at least one of those minions was getting sacked tomorrow.

"Well, I do recall you were quite good at flanking in Quidditch," she said wryly. "You could be useful with the delegation from Spain." Her eyes narrowed but there was a playful promise within.

"But isn't your boyfriend one of the delegates from Spain?"

" _Ex_ ," she said with a look over her shoulder and a conspiratorial tone. "And I wouldn't have called him _that_ , exactly anyway."

Draco was electrified by this sudden intimacy. The announcement of her availability hit him with an excitement that surprised him, and the sparkle in her eye was so enchanting that all his systems were thrown into high alert.

Right then, they both noticed her hand was still enveloped in his, never having been relinquished from the handshake.

They each looked down to where their hands were clasped, and a moment passed in silence before they both looked back up.

 _Oh_ , thought Draco, _this day is looking up_.

"Better yet," Draco said, leaning in and whispering, "what do you say we make a break for it?" Hermione opened her mouth to respond, and he could just tell she was going to make some sort of plea for being sensible, so he squeezed her hand and continued, "I know a great place for brunch that will erase all memory of this horrible experience."

She looked down at their joined hands again and a breathy, surprised laugh escaped her. Looking back up, she shook her head.

"You cannot be serious," she said, with an incredulity that wounded him.

"I'm always serious about mimosas. Besides, how better to make it clear to the Spaniard you're finished with him?"

"I'm rubbish at this," she said, with a gesture back and forth between them meant to convey any and all interesting possibilities between men and women. Her expression was unapologetic.

Draco smirked. "I very seriously doubt that. But I'm more than happy to press on and provide you with notes for improvement afterward."

She arched her brow. "No thank you, Malfoy," she said, slowly pulling her hand from his.

Draco was stunned for a moment at the rebuff, and he made a fist against the discomfort of the air rushing his now empty hand.

Hermione placed her drink on a passing tray and turned toward the exit. Her heels clicked on the wooden floor for a few steps before she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. His breath caught at the heat in her eyes.

"I don't take feedback, Malfoy. I give it." With that, she turned and walked confidently toward the door, summoning her coat and scarf as she went.

"Well then," Draco said under his breath as he followed in her wake, "I'll be looking forward to receiving my marks."

That brunch turned into coffee, which became dinner, which was followed by a nightcap at Hermione's flat in Muggle London, which led to him kissing her sloppily on the fire escape with the traffic rushing below in a cacophony of light and noise.

He pulled them back into the lounge and to a settee. It was much too soft and enveloping for the kind of frenzied petting they were engaged in, but if they were going to mess around like teenagers, it was the best setting for it.

"I fear you may have me mistaken for someone else, Malfoy..." she said as she shimmied her pencil skirt up her thighs. She pressed one knee to the cushion alongside his. The other leg swung over to straddle him.

As he felt her feet push under his thighs and her breath on his lips, he was dizzy with delight that Granger had never been more wrong.

* * *

His father used to say, often enough that Draco grew weary of hearing it, "You become an adult once you stop making promises you can't keep."

This was usually when Lucius was refusing another of Draco's requests for permission to do, see, or experience just about anything his younger self found worth doing, seeing, or experiencing. His father lived to make his life boring, and this nonsense about becoming an adult had bugger all to do with the things Draco wanted.

Years later, Lucius amended this to add, "You'll become a _man_ when you find yourself wanting to make promises, just so you can keep them."

This was in the months following the war, when Lucius was facing a return to Azkaban and none of them knew for how long. The uncertainty showed on Narcissa's face and hung from Lucius' shoulders, aging them both by decades.

Draco was too exhausted with grief then to care what his father had to say. He'd lost all authority with his son when the Dark Lord moved in, and nothing short of an unqualified assurance that everything would go back to the way it was before the war was good enough.

Many years after that, Lucius added finally, "Because one day, Draco, your promises are going to be the only thing you have going for you."

It was as his father was struggling mightily with the kind of illness that lingers until you're lulled into a denial of inevitability, so Draco still wasn't listening as intently as he would have had he known that illness was about to take Lucius for good.

He'd never wanted to make any promises to anyone. It was avoiding promises that had kept him happily single all these years, despite Narcissa's ever-weakening pleas for grandchildren and his father's hints about heirs. In fact, he was rather pleased with his record of not-promise-making; he'd never led anyone on, and he'd always been up front about what people should expect from him.

Draco had been perfectly satisfied that what people expected from him was very little.

Then came Hermione and that rush of sex and breakfasts and midday owls and more sex and private dinners and even more sex and night after night sleeping in Muggle London and just as many mornings waking up there, and perfectly satisfied was no longer enough.

He waited for that feeling, the one that always started in his stomach and inched its way up his chest, constricting the muscles as it went and tightening his throat. More than a few dates with any one woman, and he'd always felt like a drowning man laboring for each breath.

But that feeling never came with Hermione. He started to feel like he breathed more easily when he was with her than he did without her, and it didn't even frighten him when he realized it.

Draco found himself making promises to Hermione, loads of them, every day. And he kept every bloody one.

There he was, owling if he was going to miss dinner, making plans more than a day in advance, even picking up his towel from the floor every single time like he said he would.

It beggared belief, but he became addicted to it, this rush of promises given and promises kept. He wanted to make vows and plans and plant trees or whatever it is people did when they were trying to build a life together. Draco really didn't know – he'd never done it before.

What he did know was how to _avoid_ all of it, expert at it that he was, and he began to notice that Hermione was ever so slightly doing just that.

It started when he suggested they go away for the weekend to Vienna; she'd treated it as this abstract idea of which she absolutely approved, but made it clear she'd believe it was going to happen when they were in view of the Riesenrad.

She didn't even give him more credit than a shrug when that view of the bloody great wheel was from their hotel balcony.

When he'd cleared a space on the nightstand by her bed for his eye mask, moved his bottle of moisturizer to the counter in the loo (he had delicate skin that tended toward dry, especially in winter), and shoved some of her knickers over just to have some space in a drawer for clean undercrackers, she'd taken it all in with an arched brow.

"As long as you remember where everything is," she said.

Blaise thought it was the challenge of being evenly matched that pulled Draco in. His mum thought it was her resistance that made him yearn for her even more. Draco understood their reservations, but he just knew it wasn't the case.

Because now he found himself desperately wanting to spend the holidays with her. It was a decidedly foreign sensation, this desire to sit in socks and sip chocolate and open presents, with Hermione clad in flannel and smiling back at him over her own marshmallow-filled mug. He wanted to see what a Muggle Christmas dinner would be like, and what it meant to hide one's magic from people who just wouldn't understand. Even the prospect of a meal at the ramshackle Burrow was appealing with her at his side.

It was decidedly unsexy, un-Malfoy, and a bit uncouth, but want it he did, and ask for it he'd resolved to do.

He likely didn't choose the best time to bring it up, at her office, leaning casually in the doorjamb as she was darting around straightening up at the end of the day, so maybe he deserved the response he got.

"We probably shouldn't complicate things too much," she said.

"What is that supposed to mean?" he said, as his stomach twisted.

"I mean, with friends and family. With national holidays… people get ideas."

"Just what would be wrong with people getting ideas?"

Shrugging, she said, carelessly, "It's just more to explain to people afterward."

Ignoring the 'afterward,' he took a deep breath and said, "What if I'm getting ideas?"

She stopped her business at that, looking startled. But it was only a moment before she recovered.

"Draco, seriously. You don't have to do this," she said carefully. "I'm perfectly fine with how things are, and I don't expect anything more. You don't have to create this whole dream-boyfriend scenario just to keep getting laid."

That smarted, he had to admit. He started to insist that she was wrong, that he was changed and what he wanted out of life had undergone an extraordinary transformation, blooming from everything she was that he'd never before known was his heart's desire.

But she cut him off with a trumped-up argument based on… well, yes, based on decades worth of his own behavior, copiously reported on by both the tabloid and legitimate press as well as by his own admission, which Draco thought was rather low of her.

At the end of it all, she'd simply shrugged.

"I've got no illusions about this, Draco," she said. "I've always known it's a relationship with an expiration, and I don't want to be too invested when we reach the sell-by date."

One does not just follow a punch to the gut like that with any argument to the contrary, so that was the end of that for the evening. Some feeling of self-preservation led Draco to drop it, to pretend that it was settled, and that he wouldn't go rocking the boat any further.

Because whatever he would have to say, she just didn't _believe_ him. As honest as he'd always been with her, she looked at him with that dubious expression she'd given him from their first moments at the brunch. Every gesture and intimacy from Draco was met with that same amused indulgence as when she'd initially given in to his charms.

It was there between them, this foot-tapping, time-marking that kept him at a distance. But he was getting to know her too well, and he suspected what that meant.

He saw what she looked like when a deal or a something she'd worked hard at slipped through her fingers, and he knew well the face she put on to never let anyone see her beaten. She would never give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her wanting something she did not get.

No one walked away from Hermione Granger with a win. No one would ever see her broken. No one would ever bring her to her knees.

That face slipped from time to time though, and he'd committed those brief moments to memory. He saw chinks in that armor every time he pushed closer, every time he asked for more.

Ultimately, the problem with self-possessed, independent women was that they don't _need_ you. And it scared Draco shitless, because he was pretty sure he might need her, a whole lot. He suspected that, deep down, Hermione might be a little scared of _growing_ to need him, and she was fighting that like a particularly pernicious cold.

Now, he finally understood what Lucius had been on about. Because while she may not have been invested in him, he'd invested in her.

He had a bank full of promises, and not one of them broken.

* * *

Like any British witch with Germanic ancestry, Hermione took the Winter Solstice and her wreath-making seriously. No matter what was going on in the world and how much her position and power demanded of her, never did the longest night of the year pass without her taking the time for this ritual. Underneath it all, she was a very old-fashioned witch, and she believed in the true magic of wish-making as much as anyone.

Wreaths, representing the wheel of the year and the cycle of birth to death to rebirth traversed every year by the Sun, were made mindfully on the solstice. A symbol of faith in the returning light, they held the power of promise and were decorated with the things their maker wanted the new year to bring.

Each vine, herb, flower, and branch had meaning, and it would hang on the door throughout the coming year to attract with the power of the maker's intention.

Draco's herbology skills were strong, and his extensive knowledge of the Victorian language of flowers was definitely on point. He'd discovered this convenient way to communicate with Hermione when he'd presented her with white dittany some months into their dating; the fierceness of her kiss told him she'd gotten the message, _passion_. He fancied her reaction as returning the sentiment.

And now he was prepared to use all that knowledge to make some of those promises Lucius had been talking about.

Armed with a bag full of tricks and the will to see it through, Draco arrived at her flat in the dead of that longest night and brazenly interrupted what was, for her, traditionally a solitary ritual. Hermione's expression showed her lack of amusement at the intrusion, but he pushed by her into the flat and to the kitchen before she could really object.

She had all the materials ready and laid out on the table, and the evergreen base had already been prepared. Draco took a seat across from her with the heavy oak table and a hefty dose of her skepticism between them, and he set the cloth bag that he'd brought down at his feet.

Nervous, he wiped his hands on his trouser legs and fidgeted under her blank stare before gathering his strength. Then, with resolve, he carefully pulled his first contribution to the making of the wreath from the bag.

First was a vine of bittersweet: orange berries and yellow flowers twisting in a wild, yet striking bramble that could make a healthy wreath all on its own. Indeed, many wizarding families tacked circlets of bittersweet to hang on their doors year-round, though their bold color made a particularly bracing sight in fall and into the dead of winter.

This was the frame of his whole plan, upon which he was going to build everything he had to give her, and she needed to accept it as a part of her wreath, or all was lost.

 _Honesty_ , the bittersweet signified, and Draco laid it down before her like a sacred offering.

"I've always been truthful with you," he said simply.

Her eyebrows shot up and her look was incredulous. "Hang on. When I asked about your thirty-fifth birthday, you positively refused to answer–"

"History and sins of omission are not relevant here, Granger," he said abruptly, speaking over her. "Besides, you wouldn't tell me how many—"

"Fair enough," she rushed, silencing him with a raised hand.

But she still wasn't buying, so Draco pressed further.

"I have never lied to you," he said firmly.

Hermione eyed the bittersweet seriously for a long moment. When she raised her eyes to meet his, Draco saw an acknowledgement of this truth. She seemed a bit grudging about it, but her gaze softened to give him this credit.

Reaching out, she took two strands of the vine from the table and began to wind them amid the evergreen.

So far, so good.

Draco drew from his sack a second time and laid on the table a thick stem with multiple yellow flower heads springing from it. They were the flowers of the compass plant, resembling daisies in their basic wheel-like shape, but a little rougher and wilder.

 _Faith_ , the flowers entreated.

"I have never broken a single promise to you," he said, pushing the greenery toward her.

Hermione leaned back, her arms crossing over her chest. Draco knew it must have been unconscious, as she rarely gave such obvious signs of discomfort.

After decades they'd each spent essentially alone, seeing the turn of forty without a partner to share their lives fully, they'd each come to their own negotiation with believing in other people. It was simple: don't. One could only ever really rely on oneself. You stopped being let down by the world when you realized that. The first time Draco made that discovery was when he'd finally felt grown up.

Yet it wasn't so much grown as it was hardened; smoked, dried, and tanned by the disappointments, he and Hermione had become unyielding, brittle.

"Draco," she said softly, "What if–" She took a breath and started again, her voice stronger, as she said in a rush, "I don't think I want children."

He wasn't sure he'd heard her at first, so ridiculously out-of-character was her tentative tone. His relief at the absurdity brought with it a great laugh though, which startled her.

"Good God, woman. I thought you were going to tell me some deep, dark secret or something," he said.

"I'm being completely serious," she said, prickly and hugging herself even more tightly than before.

Draco softened his voice, but he couldn't suppress his smile.

"I'm quite sure I don't want children, Granger." He pressed on, in the face of her doubtful expression, "I do know how to go about getting what I want, you know. I would have probably gotten around to it by now if I did. I figured the same about you."

"But your role in your family, your _duty_ –"

He sighed. "I have cousins. Perfectly unobjectionable Malfoy cousins in the south of France. And really, what do I care? I'll be dead."

Still she didn't believe him. But she'd given him a great gift; she'd trusted him her greatest fear, that she wouldn't be everything he needed. She'd held back because it was easier to say goodbye to him now than to bear the disappointment of being left for a better (read: younger) model.

"I thought we'd agreed you would believe I'm telling you the truth from now on," he said chidingly.

She couldn't deny him that. He'd never broken a vow, and for that Draco thanked his father's wisdom, possibly for the first time with any sincerity, now years overdue.

"I want a future with you. Whatever that holds, I'm sure it's what I want," he said, then leaned forward and took her hand. "Besides, you can't possibly think I'd be the type to yearn for the pitter-patter of little feet. I value my sleep far too much."

He'd said it with the utmost seriousness, though it had the effect of breaking Hermione's resolve a bit, as she chuckled at what she had to admit was the most sincere truth Draco could ever reveal about himself. His comfort was always paramount.

She squeezed his hand and nodded, but there was one more hurdle, for both of them. Draco then pulled out a handful of oak leaves, in varying shades of ochre and brown, to add to the cause.

 _Bravery_ , they demanded, and he was asking it of himself as well as of her.

"Because I can make all the promises in the world, but I can't give guarantees," he said.

Neither of them could say for sure what would happen between them; all he could ever ask of her was that she be open to taking the chance. It was brave, it was unprecedented for both of them, and it was scary as hell.

Hermione studied both the flowers and the leaves along with his words but didn't make a move. So Draco began to pluck the blooms from the stem of the compass plant, and along with a bit of the oak, began to arrange them atop the bittersweet and evergreen. As he worked, Hermione's trembling hands joined in.

Soon the wreath was almost complete.

Draco sat back and looked at her for a moment, and she regarded him the same way. Her eyes were moist, but her expression open, and it was time to go all-in.

Reaching down to the nearly empty bag, he pulled out the last two items. Twirling them in his hands nervously, he almost resorted to eeny-meeny-miny-moe to decide which to present. As that wouldn't have been utilizing his new-found bravery, he took a deep breath and presented a single, delicate, white bloom in his outstretched hand.

Its delicacy belied its fortitude, however; it was the Christmas rose, able to bloom in the darkest coldest months, pushing through ice and frost when the rest of the flowers ran to hide.

 _Relieve my anxiety_ , it asked with great dignity and hope.

Hermione's nostrils flared, her eyes rolled, and her mouth pulled up at the corner in a smirk, because she was just never going to be the kind of witch that greeted flat-out, shmoopy sincerity with anything but amusement.

But she stood then and came round the table to where he sat. Reaching for the rose with one hand, she pulled at his lapel with the other and slipped it into the buttonhole, and he took that as a very good sign.

Even better was when she slid into his arms and settled in his lap.

Yet greater still was the moment her lips met his.

When she pulled away, there was still that remnant of doubt in Hermione's eyes, that cool reserve that might never quite leave them, and Draco was fine with that. Because if he needed to spend every day proving the worth of (what was on paper) a very bad bet, he was up to the challenge.

As he finally brought forth his last offering in the form of the honest, brave, promise of the purple globe amaranth, Hermione was ready to accept his offer, _everlasting feeling and love_.

All that was left was to place it amongst the rest. When finished, the wreath was a sight to behold; the oranges, yellows, purples, greens, and reds calling on the power of the Solstice to deliver all to them in good faith.

Together they hung it from her door, where it remained for the next year. It was replaced by the next and the next and the next, each one heavy with wishes made and promises kept.

And that was that. Easy, peasy, as they say, though only in relative terms. Qualifiers were always necessary and happy endings dosed with a considerable grain of salt when it came to the likes of Draco and Hermione, but that suited them just fine.

As did seeing in Christmas morning every year from a luxurious hotel room in the foreign country of their choosing, always with a mimosa in hand.

Of course, each of those 'mornings' always looked a lot like afternoon.

* * *

 ***~*~*~*~* the end *~*~*~*~*~**


End file.
